A novel low cost membrane for recovery of hydrogen from fuel cell reformates

"Area 2: Technology for handling fuels and processing fuels to meet fuel cell requirements.Hydrogen, obtained by steam reforming various hydrocarbons and alcoholic fuels, is the primary fuel for low temperature fuel cells, both of the alkaline electrolyte as well as the proton exchange membrane (PEM) type. The gas mixture resulting from thereforming process (the reformate) is usually contaminated with CO which is responsible for poisoning the fuel cell's catalysts. Of all the possible approaches to the CO problem, separation of the hydrogen from all other reformate gases using apalladium-based membrane is generally considered to be ideal. The effectiveness of hydrogen diffusion through dense palladium-based membranes is evidenced by the success of our commercial tubular palladium purifiers in meeting the stringent purity demandsof the compound semiconductor industry. However, the palladium wall thickness of the presently used membranes is too large to be cost effective for the fuel cell industry. Based upon our experience in hydrogen purification and our collaborator's expertisein developing engineered nanoparticulate products, we propose to develop and implement a novel palladium-based membrane assembly, wherein the thickness of the palladium membrane will be reduced to ~ 1% of that used in state-of-the-art purifiers, whilestill generating high purity hydrogen and maintaining mechanical integrity of the membrane assembly required for